The high-octane election campaign in the state of Gujarat is over. Exit polls are out with most predicting a comfortable Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win. Congress party’s internal survey claims that they will win the majority.
I am not a psephologist. I am more like a keen observer. “People of Gujarat have no reason to desert the PM and vote for others,” said Nitish. I would like to toe the line of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi & BJP Chief Amit Shah strategized, managed & ran the BJP election campaign. PM Modi, took it upon himself to take on the vigorous challenge from the Congress party.
Four things stand out from Congress’s Gujarat election campaign.
1. Rahul Gandhi has run a mature election campaign in Gujarat. His vigorous campaign emphasis remained on the state of the economy, mostly. He did not deviate much from this throughout the campaign, mostly (again). He did not provide an alternate model/view to the electorate, though.
Mani Shankar Aiyar with his derogatory comment about PM Modi did injustice to Rahul Gandhi’s campaign. Congress party’s and Rahul’ response was hesitant & cloudy; to say the least. Mr. Aiyar’s comment will play a major contributing role in Congress’s final performance.
2. The loose alliances with the trio of Hardhik, Alpesh, and Jignesh demonstrated electoral maturity by Rahul. These alliances, howsoever, opportunistic; gives a signal of Congress party’s willingness to accept electoral ground realities & compromise for the larger good of winning elections.
3. The ‘support’ team of Congress is emerging slowly but steadily. Two layers have been created. One layer includes people like PC Chidambaram. The second layer is the more tactical layer to manage elections like Ashok Gehlot & B. Solanki. Unlike any other elections in the recent past that Congress has run; Gujarat elections was probably managed – at the operational level – in a highly organized manner. The first layer focuses on long-term impact creation (help build a different narrative as well as ‘puncture’ BJP’s storyline of development) while providing tactical support to operational challenges.
4. Gujarat (like Bihar) elections showed a weakness in PM Modi. It is difficult for me to fathom why it is a deliberate approach/tactic; if indeed it is one. PM Modi pushes the envelope on rhetoric and aggression. During Bihar elections, this weakness of PM Modi was one contributing factor for BJP electoral loss. Congress’s Gujarat election campaign forced PM Modi to push the envelope again, though not as much as in Bihar.
All-in-all, Congress party improved their election strategy & management significantly.
Rahul Gandhi needs to demonstrate consistency and stability of the strategy & campaign. To compete effectively in 2019, Rahul Gandhi needs to do more. He needs to appeal to the imagination of the electorate with an alternate view (read narrative) of India. This can be gauged in the coming months & years leading up to 2019 general elections.
Irrespective of the final outcome, BJP will have to do some thinking about their election strategies of future.
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